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Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

economist.com

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Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#401

Post by Swenrekcah »

jcims wrote: post #202
Swenrekcah wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because cities make a lot of things much better and easier. There are definately downsides, but they can be solved. We have systems to collect and clean waste so that is no longer a problem. When cars can be mostly eliminated and the ones that are left will be autonomus, that’s the traffic and air pollution problem mostly solved. Then we can also have more of untouched land for wildlife and our general pleasure.

>Then we can also have more of untouched land for wildlife and our general pleasure. I live in a rural area in Ohio. Any eligible land that isn't being tilled already gets converted to farm land. Plots are getting consolidated, treelines are getting leveled and burned to gain another couple acres of arable land. I think if we all move to cities there will be some natural parks but most of it will be converted to ag a…

True, that’s another problem to solve. How to reduce each person’s nutritional footprint while improving their nutritional intake.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#402

Post by jonfw »

lmm wrote: post #333
upstandingdude wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats more or less prohibitively expensive, because your hiking location would be outside of parking zone most likely, thus you're on the clock the whole time. Not my idea of a relaxing experience. Looks like zipcar is even station bound which makes it worse. You have to get yourself and all the stuff to the station somehow and then take it back from there again when you are done.

> Thats more or less prohibitively expensive, because your hiking location would be outside of parking zone most likely, thus you're on the clock the whole time. Not my idea of a relaxing experience. An extra hour or two doesn't make a lot of difference when you're already booking for a weekend. Of course if you get stuck on a mountain overnight or something then you'd have a penalty charge, but frankly that would be…

> Of course if you get stuck on a mountain overnight

This is often my end goal when I go hiking

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#403

Post by fredophile »

vkou wrote: post #397
lkbm wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, why would I prefer a driverless taxi if an electric car with a human driver costs no more? I believe the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 30 is traffic accidents.[0] It's around 40,000 deaths per year (in the US alone). Cars are getting safer, but humans aren't getting better drivers. Individuals humans will get better with experience, but experienced drivers cycle out and new drivers…

> A 16-year-old doesn't get to inherit the experience of the 70-year-old they're replacing. A new self-driving car does inherit the experience of older self-driving cars. They also learn from each other in a way humans can't. > Human drivers also improve at a rate of O(1). Self-driving cars can share their experience perfectly, so they improve at a rate of O(n). I get a day of driving experience per day. Each one of…

> why are self-driving cars still unable to drive in snow

Have you seen people driving on the first snowfall of the year?

> or navigate a parking lot without nearly getting t-boned?

Driving in a parking lot is tough. Lots of pedestrians, lots of other cars, and way more people driving in reverse than you'd see in most scenarios.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#404

Post by mumblemumble »

lkbm wrote: post #347
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

> Also, why would I prefer a driverless taxi if an electric car with a human driver costs no more? I believe the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 30 is traffic accidents.[0] It's around 40,000 deaths per year (in the US alone). Cars are getting safer, but humans aren't getting better drivers. Individuals humans will get better with experience, but experienced drivers cycle out and new drivers…

> I believe the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 30 is traffic accidents.

And it's possible that the number one cause of shortened lifespan for older Americans is also cars, by virtue of encouraging (perhaps enforcing, if they've sufficiently influenced your town's urban planning) a sedentary lifestyle, and all the health risks associated with one. I also wouldn't be surprised if they contribute to the USA's relatively high rate of mental health issues, by contributing to social isolation.

Self-driving cars won't help with those bits. If anything, they'll intensify them.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#405

Post by tomerico »

greiskul wrote: post #362
evo_9 wrote: post #248

I don't understand why there is so much focus on automobiles instead of just about everything else. In every other instance - airplanes, boats, long-haul trucking - the problem in significantly less complex to solve. The only tangible reason I see for such disproportionate focus is some sense of false futurism; aka, driver-less cars have become the 'flying cars' of our times.

Whats the percentage of the cost of the driver for airplanes, boats and long-haul trucking, compared to the cost of each trip? Maybe for the trucking it is significant, but I'm not sure airplane ticket prices would go down significantly if we automated them. But with cars, the price of the driver is actually pretty big, at least 50% of the cost of each ride, when taking a cab or Uber. So that can be a lot of money pe…

With airplanes, it might open up new things that seem far fetched today. For example, commuting to work with a drone.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#406

Post by fooblitzky »

ossworkerrights wrote: post #149
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

But why do we even need to cluster in massive cities, when today’s technologies allow for remote work for pretty much any non physical type of work? Accountants, developers, designers, architects, customer support, and so on can all be done remotely. That would reduce both the need to drive and to cram people in overcrowded public transport options.

For two main reasons: efficiency and preventing habitat loss.

Higher densities of people make many things more efficient, e.g. shared heating in apartment building, making mass transit viable, sharing resources like food and water. Climate change is forcing our hand on transitioning to a higher-efficiency society, but we would have to do it soon anyway because we are running out of oil. When you can't enjoy the energy density of fossil fuels, efficiency will start to matter a whole lot more. Our current mode where a single person might travel up to 50 or 100 miles every day, just to live their life, is a ridiculously inefficient way of spending your time on Earth.

Secondly, habitat loss is the single greatest cause of the mass extinction of species we are currently experiencing. Most of that is agriculture, but urban sprawl certainly plays a big part. If we want to enjoy, you know, other species existing, we should be looking for ways to reduce the amount of land we need to occupy as humans.

Also, a bonus: kids that grow up in walkable neighborhoods have been shown to have the highest levels of upward economic mobility. So really if you want to do right by your kids, you should be moving to a walkable area and reducing your car use.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#407

Post by virmundi »

boxy310 wrote: post #274
bane wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large aircraft are basically self-driving these days. Pilots can choose to do almost nothing at all from takoff to landing. However, the failure modes are all mostly catastrophic so pilots remain under the assumption that they can slightly increase the survivability rate when the automation fails. Modern drone systems are also have elements of this kind of automation and can fly complex flight paths and station keep…

Long-haul trucking would be a great use-case. Even if you need humans for local pilot guidance, you can queue them up to a "cell phone lot" and courier the last-mile drivers in between shifts of going back & forth. It would also mean drivers would be based more locally to points of loading, rather than having to be constantly on the road away from home.

Long-haul is more than just driving. Will smart trucks be able to put chains on and pull them off when necessary? Handle unloading of items of weighing process proves problematic? Call for pick up of items removed during weighing? Handle snow? Handle loss of sensors? Handle run away down hill on a steep incline. None of these are insurmountable, but all are well out of the current horizon. Heck, just refueling is hard.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#408

Post by KingMachiavelli »

rubicon33 wrote: post #384
lkbm wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, why would I prefer a driverless taxi if an electric car with a human driver costs no more? I believe the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 30 is traffic accidents.[0] It's around 40,000 deaths per year (in the US alone). Cars are getting safer, but humans aren't getting better drivers. Individuals humans will get better with experience, but experienced drivers cycle out and new drivers…

Just yesterday while driving to the gym, I witnessed the person behind me at a red light, violently gas it and swerve out into oncoming traffic lanes, drive past all the cars waiting for the light, and blow straight through the red light. He went on to blow another red light before turning off onto a side street. This kind of shit would never happen with a self driving car. The bar for self driving cars is incredibly…

Well, that kind of stuff would still happen since in that case the driver was deliberately driving recklessly.

In fact, people could start accounting on other people's self driving cars being cautions and deliberately betting on their safety features. e.g If most people were driving a Tesla I could more safety run red lights since their other cars will stop for me automatically.

Unless we are going to make self-driving ONLY cars that is.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#409

Post by acd »

The solution is pretty simple. We need to design electric highways that have a self driving lane. In the self driving lane there is guidance in the road that assist self driving cars. Since the cars are self driving they can coast in 80km/h sharing the lane with trucks. Add electric supply and rails to lessen the tire friction and we are a long way to reduce carbon emissions from transportation.

For city centers cars should for now assist the driver but not self drive as the system are not yet safe enough todo so. From machine learning we know that image analysis has probabilities associated with them. Probably might not be safe enough in cities.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#410

Post by ceejayoz »

tempsy wrote: post #379
ceejayoz wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you'd have to be home to take things out of the vehicle. It's more the pizza/grocery delivery model than the "we left your Amazon package on the porch" one.

That seems pretty inconvenient. I'd predict a ton of missed deliveries. Even with Amazon/Whole Foods delivery they ring but will just drop it off at my door.

I'd expect them to be very clear about needing to be home, letting you pick a specific time, and a fee for a missed window.
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